Pirate Party has arrived. Thank you, Microsoft.

The Pirate Party in Sweden now won a seat at the EU parliament. This is in the wake of their loss at a trial in Sweden, the one that they “lost.” It did come out later that the judge had a whole bunch of undisclosed links to a Microsoft-funded organization. That made the news in Sweden big-time. Now the Pirate Party is enormously popular. No one ever predicted that they would win a seat in parliament. But they have. More than 2 years ago I’d blogged here, noting that those who enacted the DMCA couldn’t afford to actually use it, because they would morally isolate themselves. The strong IP folks, of course, told me I was wrong etc etc. Who was right? You be the judge:

The group – which campaigned on reformation of copyright and patent law – secured 7.1% of the Swedish vote.

The result puts the Pirate Party in fifth place, behind the Social Democrats, Greens, Liberals and the Moderate Party.

Rickard Falkvinge, the party leader, told the BBC the win was “gigantic” and that they were now negotiating with four different EU Parliamentary groups.

“Last night, we gained political credibility,” said Mr Falkvinge.

“People were not taken in by the establishment and we got political trust from the citizens.”

The profile of the Pirate Party and issues surrounding copyright law have dominated headlines in Sweden over the past few months.

Rallying cry

In April, a court in Sweden sentenced the four men behind The Pirate Bay, the world’s most high-profile file-sharing website, to a year in jail and ordered them to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.

Mr Falkvinge said it had played a significant role in getting them the vote.